New Nestlé freezers to help tackle climate change

Nestlé is systematically introducing more environmentally-efficient ice cream freezers using natural refrigerants across Europe. The company has pledged that from now on all new commercial horizontal ice cream chest freezers bought by Nestlé across Europe will use only natural refrigerants. These are naturally occurring substances—like carbon dioxide, ammonia, water, or air and hydrocarbons, like propane and iso-butane—which do not harm the ozone layer and have no or negligible global warming effects. The new horizontal ice cream chest freezers will reduce energy consumption by more than a third, in comparison with existing systems.

Nestlé has already introduced 18,000 natural refrigerant hydrocarbon freezers worldwide. The company has also invested more than CHF 240 million to replace synthetic refrigerants with natural alternatives in more than 92% of its industrial refrigeration systems. The decision to systematically introduce these commercial horizontal ice cream chest freezers across Europe is part of Nestlé’s commitment to progressively phase out the use of high global warming potential refrigerants, such as hydrofluorocarbons (HFC).

It also moves the company beyond meeting the Consumer Goods Forum Resolution on Refrigeration, which encourages businesses to take action towards phasing out some HFC refrigerants by 2015.